The very first Tale of the Zombie Apocalypse. As you may be able to tell from this initial posting, there will really be no type of sequence to all this. Simply, a weekly tale will be told- each showing a day in a world now reluctantly resolved to living with a global Zombie pandemic. Most of our tales will take place in the Cascadia Quarantine Zone, an area of cities, rural communities, and wilderness- some of which have been lost to the infection, some which “soldier on” day to day, striving to maintain some form of normalcy in a crazy world. As we progress, we will look at the quasi-military zombie eradication and containment units, the Marine units that keep the peace (and keep the eradication units in check), and the civilian populace who are just trying to live their days in relative quiet.

I’m really enjoying playing with the flash fiction format. Years ago, I used to write flash but I was discouraged by several peers because back then there was a limited market for it. Now? Now, I’ll make my own market plus it’s great for submitting.

We will be at Crypticon, it will be tight and the timing is hard, but I really want to go and see people. Might get to the Portland Horror con in Nov. – I don’t know about scheduling anything else until I have an idea of wherefors and whyfors coming up.

One of these days I’ll have to start putting in for pro-badges and sitting panels, but I’m not enthusiastic about it, and I’ll put it off as long as possible. I’d rather spike my Venom with Pimm’s and have fun in the vending room.

I signed up for Blysster Press’s writers thing at Crypticon and Charity Becker complimented me by saying she thought there was a limited amount I could gain…. Little does she realize just how editor dependent I am and the I-never-went-to-high-school-basic holes in my skills. I’m looking forward to it.

I want to get involved or organize writer events from the third and fifth book step it up level and not from the beginners first book level. An I just enjoy going to writer things, regardless of the level….

There’s an offer on the table to buy out my events, a tempting offer not in $ but in that the events would finally have a budget and support system to grow the way they deserve. I’ll announce on fb when I decided either way.

I’m still waiting on covers for “LowRez” and “The Quiet Ones” the artist has a day job and charges in diet coke so I can’t complain.

I have a meeting today, to discuss something…. and if it goes the way I think it will, my schedule will change and I will need to rethink a few things. We’ll see.

For starters, the word Bourgeois means social middle class as seen by the working class. Yes, I know Bougi has come to mean Jersey Shores and spray tans carrying knock off coach bags. And that’s not far from the definition. It’s new money, stupid money, and flashing money you don’t really have.

And Chanel #5 isn’t old money, rich elite either no matter how expensive it is.

What it is is a perfect example of survival and empowerment and adaptation, but mostly it’s grief and recovery.

Coco Chanel was sent to the Church of Aubazine orphanage at age 12. Born out of wedlock, her stepfather abandoned Coco and her sister after their mother’s death.

She left the orphanage at 18, took work as a seamstress and sang in dance halls until she was 23, when a rich man took her as his open mistress.

At 26, she moved to a Paris apartment paid for by a new lover who would later spark her signature Chanel #5 perfume. The interlocking CC’s used in her company logo come from the stained glass windows of the orphanage chapel. The name #5 is said to be because it was the 5th sample she tested but she, herself, has stated that it was a hat tip to the modern art movements such as Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism that were all the rage in Paris then, and that she never wanted the perfume to be dated. The perfume relies heavily on Jasmine, but it is unique in that it has no top or low (or defining) notes and is seen as a perfect blending of 80 separate scents into one detectable perfume. Coco Chanel gave French Perfumer Ernest Beaux an old sweater from a lover and a list of scents he regularly wore and asked him to recreate his smell after his death. At the time, it was considered the most expensive perfume in the world.

While the perfume is an icon to this day, consider that Chanel was the first fashion house to design for women without corsets or petticoats. Her styles were dance hall practical and marketed to the Paris elite. She designed Audrey Hepburn’s Little Black Dress, but changed fashion by necessity when her lover died and she had to design a spring campaign with no money for the miles of expense material that was then the style, instead she shocked fashion by presenting Jersey fabric (previously only seen in undergarments) in light, airy, comfortable dresses that took fashion from the Gibson Girl to the Flapper.

She survived betrayal, working in the sex trade, a world where women couldn’t own property, and the death of a loved one to build an institution that was based on practical designs made with low cost fabric in an era of velvet and steel boning and maids. She changed fashion, and when she had the money she paid to have a lost lover immortalized as a perfume that has stood the test of time.

And now you know where to send it if you have an unwanted bottle lying around……………

Flattery is the sincerest form of imitation.
Doesn’t make any better sense when you say it that way does it.
Imitation is imitation not flattery. Imitation ca…n be a sincere (misguided) attempt to offer value and gain attention from someone you respect. Imitation can be a crass attempt to profit from some else’s ground work and research. And imitation can be a deliberate (even if unintended) insult that shows how little you value the other person’s work.
I grew up with artists. My grandmother was a painter, she pushed herself daily, the only time I can ever remember her not painting or actively working towards painting (ie the prep work needed before sitting down to paint) during the course of a day was her mother’s funeral. My father is an artist, my sister, and about half of my cousins. I grew up with artists.
I can art if I have too, but I don’t have the repetition of practice to draw, paint, frame a photo, or sculpt fluidly. I used to draw daily, dead roses and bugs, spider webs and abstract patterns approaching paisley. I enjoy drawing. I used to paper mache’, famine pigs, dragons, and ballerina puppets, and I would probably still paper mache if I had a couple of clones. I used to sculpt, fat lazy dragons, parasitic worms, and snakes. Weird fatagorasmistic snakes from nightmares painted pastel. I would still sculpt if I had time, space, and equipment. I’ve done woodworking, hardwood boxes and gilded picture frames covered in greek key and cherries. I loved wood working , but I can’t justify using power tools and dyslexia anymore – I really can’t. I used to paint, oils mostly, the way I was taught, storm clouds and rocks and broken boards on the beach. Again with the lack of time.
I took piano lessons for a decade, played the guitar until I was in my twenties, and sung. Singing is past tense, I still love it but a blown ear drum, dyslexia, and weak lungs means I don’t even try to sing in public anymore. I have higher standards than I can meet.
I do fiber arts, I spin raw fiber that someone else has labeled unspinnable and I see just how nice a yarn I can make. And I crochet from time to time. Both are for destressing more that art – craft and hobby.
And I write. Every day. I write fiction. I write non-fiction. I write poetry. I write plays. I write. I spin ideas one after the next shifting variables and playing with world building and plot limitting concepts. This is my idea of fun. I am told I make it look easy.
Ideas are easy. If you are creative in any way then the idea for something new should be the easy part.
“I want to write a story… about… a fisherman who gets knocked overboard in a storm and rescued by mermaids only to realize that they are aliens planning an invasion…. Scratch the mermaids, too silly… and rescued by aliens planning an invasion…. Why would they rescue him?…. retrieved by aliens planning an invasion and the interrogate him….. Why? He’s just a fisherman….. a sailor, scratch… a US Navy officer who get knocked overboard in a storm…. Um,, that would take some pretty convoluted circumstances there are safety protocols….. So. A US Navy Officer that suspects his Captain of treason in planning a mid storm rendezvous with a Russian sub only to get knocked overboard, retrieved by the Russians, realizes that they are aliens, and has to escape. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll go back to the mermaids…..
(yeah that was all stream of thought)
Ideas are easy. Sitting down for hours at a time and writing, writing when you have no fricking clue where the story is going, writing when you are certain the tory sucks, and writing when you get invited to go do something fun but you know your self imposed deadline is looming….. That takes being a writer.
Being a writer is also in the edit when it’s finished. And the second edit. And the rewrite when you realize that editing just isn’t getting it where you want it to go. Writing is in cutting out 8 thousand words and writing 12 thousand new words in an 80 thousand word manuscript only to have a beta reader not be able to spot the actual changes while telling you how much better it reads.
Writing is not school learned essay formulas, rewriting a story or movie with your own names and claiming originality, and writing is not simple declaring that you are a writer now because you used to write once.
Writers write, they don’t stop. A writer puts haiku to the grocery list, edits billboards without thinking, and plots out a movie based on the trailers and the first 10 minutes.
Artists art, doodle in the margins, paint in the dust on cars, and sculpts mashed potatoes into faces.
Musicians make music. Fingers drumming, whistling counter tempos, and strumming anything that will make a sound to try for a pleasant sound they can modify.
I played piano when I was young. I would never even consider announcing that I am a piano player again and start going to coffee shops expecting others to listen to me play. I don’t care how good I was. Then.
If I make writing look easy then I am showing years of practice, years of struggle, years of rewriting, and years of deleting.
And I still suck. I still miss the mood or the image I am trying to craft and have to fumble to force the end piece to communicate what I want.
If you want to be a writer, good for you, write. Just write. Finish the first piece no matter how bored you get with it, ignore the siren call of a new idea and finish it. Edit it. And ask someone to read it when you can’t edit any more. Then listen and rewrite and edit some more. And set deadlines. Force writing time. Set aside your art time, forget your music time, abandon your TV shows, and prioritize writing. If you want to be a writer that should be you defining trait. And in learning the craft it has to be your primary focus until it becomes a habit.
If you used to write and you want to reclaim that talent – write, don’t talk about past writing, don’t expect past writing habits or patterns to help you – in fact reject them ut right as having failed you once before. Take to writing with the understanding and certainty that you know less that a newcomer having written yourself out of writing once before.
And if the only reason you are thinking about writing is because you see others with books and you think “I can do that, it looks easy and fun, and I want to play with the cool kids,” take up the violin first. When you can play “The devil went down to Georgia” with feeling – then consider writing for fun.
Yeah, it’s like that.